Alex Spillius is The Daily Telegraph's Washington Correspondent.

Non-stick Mike

When is some of the mud being flung at Mike Huckabee by his Republican opponents going to stick?

Can any of the candidates damage Mike Huckabee's position?

Today Mitt Romney launches a new TV ad in Iowa criticizing the former Arkansas governor's record on immigration as soft, by supporting state help with tuition fees for the children of illegal immigrants.

This week Fred Thompson attacked him for calling for the lifting of the US embargo on Cuba, while all his major opponents have tried to paint him as a tax-and-spend liberal in a pro-lifer's, Baptist minister's clothing.

And what happens? His poll numbers keep rising. Perhaps the bubble will burst, but by the look of things not until well after Iowa. The Drudge Report meanwhile claims that the Democratic National Committee has told all candidates to lay off Mike, because his Right-wing social opinions would make him easy meat in a general election. When it emerged over the weekend that in 1992 Huckabee had called for Aids patients to be quarantined, Democrat voices were silent. But among Republicans, that remark doesn't seem to have done him any harm either.